The Forecaddie: Oklahoma golfers feel the need for speed

The Forecaddie: Oklahoma golfers feel the need for speed

The Forecaddie is well aware slow play is a festering issue in competitive golf. But what happens when elite golfers are asked to go at hyper-speed?

Plenty of good times.

Ryan Hybl, Oklahoma’s men’s golf head coach, decided to have some fun with his team a few months back. After his brother-in-law sent him an article from Golfweek detailing a man breaking the Guinness World Records mark for fastest hole played by an individual (the hole must be at least 500 yards), Hybl quickly texted his assistant coach, “We’ve got to do this.”

So Oklahoma’s roster, players and coaches, went to the eighth hole at Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club on a January day and each tried his best to better the 1 minute, 50.6 second record mark. It was unofficial for sure, with no Guinness World Records representative present, but the The Man Out Front can’t help but marvel at the spirit of it all.

“It was just a fun opportunity for us to get out there and have as good a time as we could,” Hybl said.

Indeed, that wasn’t lacking. As it turned out, this quest is harder than it looks. While Hybl didn’t think that 1-minute-50-second mark being broken was likely, he thought someone on his squad would sniff 2 minutes. But the best time was 2 minutes, 6 seconds, put in by senior Rylee Reinertson.

The humor, though, came through just fine. Hybl noted that roughly half the players were so winded after sprinting from the tee to reach the ball for the second shot, that they went full chunk on the approach.

“You never see our guys chunk a shot, and they get up there and it just goes literally 50 yards in front of them,” Hybl told TMOF. “It was super funny.”

Oh, and there was sophomore Thomas Johnson, who fell as he raced off the tee box.

“Dying laughing,” Hybl said. “It was great.”

Johnson still ended up posting one of the best times in this experiment. The partial footage released of this whole undertaking is certainly something to behold.

The goal: play No. 8 at the Jimmie in less than 1:50 to set a Guiness World Record. @Rreinertson3 came close.

Hybl indicated the squad could turn this into a yearly contest, a development The Forecaddie would no doubt appreciate. Oh and if these guys really set their minds to it, that record would be in jeopardy.

“If we practiced it, our guys could get really close to that (record), if not beat it,” Hybl said.